Geographical Dimensions of The Shining Path Insurgency in Peru

American Geographical Society
Geographical Dimensions of the Shining Path Insurgency in Peru

Author(s): Robert B. Kent
Source: Geographical Review, Vol. 83, No. 4 (Oct., 1993), pp. 441-454
Published by: American Geographical Society
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GEOGRAPHICAL DIMENSIONS OF THE
SHINING PATH INSURGENCY IN PERU*
ROBERT B. KENT
ABSTRACT. The Shining Path insurgency began in Peru in 1980. T

emphasized rural revolution, establishment of liberated zones, and
of cities. The counterinsurgent campaign in 1983 prevented the cr
permanent territorial base in the departments of Ayacucho and A
led to expansion of insurgent operations northward in the central A
mid-1980s the insurgents advanced into the rain-forest region
Huallaga Valley and onto the altiplano in the southern Andes.
surrounding shantytowns were included in insurgent activities by
The insurgents displayed an uncanny ability to maintain their str
vast area and in different natural and social environments.
THE effective control of geographically based regions leading to the es-

tablishment of an insurgent state is an axiom of modern revolutionary
movements. The creation of an insurgent state may be conceptualized
as a three-stage military-political process, with each stage characterized by
distinct territorial expressions (McColl 1969, 614; 1975, 303). The first stage,
mobile warfare, is typified by the ephemeral nature of insurgent activities
and the insurgents' tentative confrontation of state power. At this stage the
insurgents have no fixed base or permanent territorial presence. Guerrilla
warfare, the second stage, is marked by the insurgents' increasing ability to
confront the state openly and by establishment of a core area which they
control. In the later phases of this stage, additional insurgent core areas
controlled by insurgents are established. The final stage is the creation
of a full-fledged, territorial-based insurgent state. This stage is characterized
militarily by the insurgents' ability to compete openly with the forces of the
established state and administratively by imposing territorial units and struc-
tures of governance.
In 1980 a Maoist faction of the Communist party in Peru, known as the
Sendero Luminoso, or Shining Path, initiated an armed insurgency against the
Peruvian state. The effects of the Shining Path on the economic, social, and
political life of Peru have been widespread. The strategy and tactics of the
Shining Path have included important geographical elements in the move-
ment's efforts to overthrow the successive democratic governments. This
article identifies the territorial dimensions of the Shining Path insurgency
and analyzes its progress toward the establishment of an insurgent state.
* A faculty research grant from the Graduate School of the University of Akron partially funded
this research.
* DR. KENT is an associate professor of geography and planning at the University of

Akron, Akron, Ohio 44325.
Copyright ? 1993 by the American Geographical Society of New York
442 THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW
Beginning in the mid-1960s the Shining Path established a vast net

of supporters and sympathizers in the rural areas of the southern An
departments of Ayacucho and Apurimac, primarily through control o
education faculty at the Universidad Nacional San Crist6bal de Huam
in Ayacucho (Degregori 1990). Control of faculty and curriculum pr
adherents of the Shining Path with a mechanism for recruiting revolution
cadres from the population of provincial youths who accounted for
majority of the students at the university. Many of those early revolutio
cadres completed their studies and became school teachers in the dis
capitals and hamlets of Ayacucho and Apurimac. They provided the Sh
Path with invaluable opportunities, including the use of teaching posi
to diffuse its revolutionary message, the establishment of a widesprea
work of adherents and sympathizers in the countryside, and the geograph
basis for the creation of territorial strongholds and eventually of so-
liberated zones once the armed struggle was initiated.
THE REGIONAL CORE
During the late 1970s the Shining Path left the university in Ayacucho
and relocated to relatively inaccessible areas of the countryside, where it
created "popular schools," worked closely with peasants, and began forcibly
to disperse the representatives of the state, local capitalists, and large land-
owners (Gorriti Ellenbogen 1990, 86). Several provinces in northern Ayacucho
and the province of Andahuaylas in neighboring Apurimac formed the
principal territorial focus of these activities (Fig. 1).
Securely established in these areas, the Shining Path initiated its armed
conflict in Ayacucho in 1980. It followed a Maoist model that called for
liberation of the countryside, an end to market-oriented agricultural pro-
duction, and disarticulation of the capitalistic marketing system. Theoretically
those policies would eventually cut off the supply of basic food commodities
to cities, increase urban social disorder, and allow the Shining Path to encircle
the principal urban areas, culminating in the downfall of the Peruvian state.
The Shining Path pursued its three-stage strategy successfully during the
early 1980s in Ayacucho and Apurimac. Several operational and guerrilla
zones were established when armed attacks on police outposts and stations
led police officials to abandon large areas of rural Ayacucho. Threats, intim-
idations, and selective assassinations encouraged the retreat of the represen-
tatives of the central government, as well as of elected local officials and
other community leaders. In several instances the result was the creation of
full-fledged support bases, in which the Shining Path established its own
governance structures to replace those of the central government and local
indigenous institutions.
The isolated upper reaches of the Caracha River, some twenty kilometers
southwest of Cangallo in Ayacucho, is one such area. The center of a small
farming and grazing region lying between 3,000 and 4,000 meters, it includes
SHINING PATH INSURGENCY 443
VALLEY
CE 'NTRAL ANDES/ \
MANTARO VALLEY
LIMA FRONT \ },
HUANCAVELICA Cuzco L \
IMAC
AYACUCHO CORE
AYAC
* Theater of operation for

Sendero Luminoso
Departmental boundaries Km
0 100 200 300 400 500
FIG. 1-Areas of Shining Path activity in Peru.
the towns of Lucanamarca, Carapo, Sacsamarca, and Huanca Sancos. In l

1981 the Shining Path began to operate openly there, convening town m
ings in the central square of Huanca Sancos and haranguing local reside
with revolutionary messages (Bonner 1988, 42). The Shining Path rapid
took control of the town, using the municipal building for its offices a
living quarters. The local Shining Path chief was a high-school teacher w
had been living in the town for four years.
The social and economic life of the townspeople was rapidly reorder
Travel into and out of town was controlled by Shining Path guards; pub
meetings were banned except when villagers were to receive revolutiona
doctrine from the cadres; and economic life was modified radically. Villag
were prohibited from owning more than five head of cattle and fifty sheep
Farmers were ordered to reduce field output and to produce only enou
for their subsistence needs (Gorriti Ellenbogen 1990,375). Food became scarce
and many villagers were reportedly reduced to eating one meal a day (Bonne
1988, 42). The execution of a respected former teacher and mayor furth
alienated the populace.
In early 1983, after more than a year of rule by the Shining Path, lo
discontent led to bloody confrontations between the populace and insurge
in Sacsamarca, Huanca Sancos, and Lucanamarca. Those confrontations re-
sulted in the death of about sixty peasants in Lucanamarca and perhaps as
many as eighty Shining Path fighters at the hands of villagers from Sacsa-
marca who were assisted by a handful of police (Bonner 1988, 45-46).
Nearby, along the upper reaches of the Pampas River, into which the
Caracha flows, a similar pattern of territorial occupation and incipient Shin-
ing Path rule evolved. By mid-1981 the Shining Path had begun the first
phase of territorial domination in the village of Chuschi with a moralization
campaign, a technique, subsequently used in other areas, which singles out
thieves, abusive governmental officials, and local elites for punishment and
is usually met with widespread popular support (Berg 1986/87,170; Manrique
1990/91, 33; Smith 1992b, 25). By December 1981 the Shining Path had closed
the municipality and named a "popular committee" to govern local affairs
(Isbell 1992, 66).
The Shining Path mandated a drastic reorganization of social and eco-
nomic life in Chuschi (Isbell 1992, 66). Key elements included attempts to
outlaw fiestas and drinking, abolition of the traditional civil-religious system
of governance, imposition of a communal planting system based on resi-
dential neighborhoods, prohibition of peasant participation in the weekly
markets, and an attempt to close the only road to the town. However, the
Shining Path was resisted on all counts, and its efforts to implement the
changes had generally failed by late 1982.
During that year the Shining Path controlled not only Chuschi but also
many other small towns and villages in the upper Pampas and farther down
the valley (Isbell 1992,67). At the same time, in the rural areas of the adjoining
province of Andahuaylas, local authorities resigned their offices. Th

Path held sway over most of the rural areas but apparently did
new local-government structures under its control (Berg 1986/8
By the end of 1982, when the Shining Path's rule was unrave
upper reaches of the Caracha and Pampas rivers, the central g
realized that the police forces were unwilling or unable to confront
posed by the movement. Evidence suggests that police authori
systematic abandonment of posts in many towns, often despite
of local residents (Gorriti Ellenbogen 1990, 86, 305, 332). Preside
Belaunde militarized the conflict by dispatching army and mar
Ayacucho. An aggressive, violent counterinsurgency campaign b
early in 1983. Along with egregious violations of human right
Watch 1990; Amnesty International 1991), the military successfully
the Shining Path from establishing permanent liberated areas
areas but did not succeed in eliminating the movement from th
In Andahuaylas, along the eastern margin of the Pampas
government's counterinsurgency campaign drove the Shining Pa
most accessible rural areas. Many of its cadres retreated to remote,
inaccessible villages like San Antonio de Cachi and Cocharcas, w
appointed popular committees between 1983 and 1985. San Anton
for example, remained firmly under Shining Path control and
permanent support base for its regional activities (Gonzalez 198
ever, the most experienced and best-trained cadres were trans
where to open new fronts. Thus, although the repression by t
government checked expansion of the movement in Ayacucho
huaylas, it encouraged geographical dispersal and intensification
surgency elsewhere.
The Shining Path remains a strong presence in Ayacucho
huaylas, operating with relative freedom in the rural areas and
will small towns and peasant communities that oppose it. It re
bushes bus and truck traffic along the main roads and is capabl
access to the departmental capital of Ayacucho for short perio
1992b, A3). This strength results not from a social compact w
and workers but from the movement's evolution into an effici
guerrilla force that uses threats, violence, and terrorism to int
local populace (DESCO 1989, 345).
A WIDENING INSURRECTION
Although the Shining Path concentrated its territorial energy on Aya-

cucho and Apurimac during the early 1980s, by mid-decade it was active
throughout Peru, and nearly every department registered some violence
attributable to the movement. The department of Lima, especially metro-
politan Lima, represented a secondary focus of Shining Path activity, and
many violent incidents were reported there between 1980 and 1984. This
department ranked second only to Ayacucho and actually sur

1981 (DESCO 1989, 28).
As the government pursued its counterinsurgency campaign
and Apurimac in 1983 and 1984, the Shining Path extended its
reach. The growth in the number of provinces affected by the
ernment's declarations of a state of emergency between 1985 a
trates the expanding territorial coverage of the insurgency (Fig. 2
ing Path directed its efforts into three new theaters of operation-
the central Andean departments of Huancavelica, Junin, Pasco,
northeast into the tropical rain forests of the upper Huallaga
south into the department of Puno on the altiplano.
THE CENTRAL ANDES
The dispersal of the Shining Path northward along the Andean axis was
due in part to its understanding of the Andean ecosystem and its ability to
exploit it tactically. The Shining Path's preferred field of operations in the
Andes has been the ecological zone known as the puna, land that is generally
above 4,000 meters. This zone stretches nearly uninterrupted along most of
Peru's Andean axis. It is sparsely populated, remote, and inaccessible to
governmental forces, which usually are garrisoned in towns and cities along
the valley floors and concentrate their activities in adjacent areas. Besides
offering a remote refuge and a transportation axis, the puna provides com-
manding access to most of the populated regions below it (Smith 1992b, 17).
A main thrust by the Shining Path northward was into Junin, specifically
the Mantaro Valley, which lies almost directly east of Lima. This valley has
great strategic importance. It is a leading producer of foodstuffs for Lima,
the focus of many mining enterprises in the mountains surrounding the
valley, a key provider of hydroelectric power to Lima and other parts of
Peru, and an important crossroads for highways that run north-south along
the Andean chain and east-west from Lima to the tropical rain forests on
the eastern front of the Andes (Manrique 1989, 63-64). The Shining Path did
not encounter ideal conditions for the spread of its revolutionary model in
the Mantaro Valley. Most peasant communities there are sophisticated, are
integrated into the national economy, experience some economic success,
and have a strong tradition of independence.
As a result, the Shining Path has had mixed results. Peasant farmers and
livestock producers on or adjacent to the valley floor have generally opposed
its presence and have been outraged by its actions. The destruction of the
only milk-processing plant in the valley had devastating effects on members
of the producers' cooperative that depended on the plant. The action led
many members to take up arms and confront the movement (Manrique 1989,
64). Some communities, like Ingenio, situated on the eastern margin of the
valley, have resisted Shining Path intrusions by establishing community-
defense patrols, often at the urging or under the aegis of the government's
i
^JY,
1990
1985 - 1989
1981 - 1984
Km
0 100 200 300 400 500
FIG. 2-Areas of Peru under a state of emergency 1981-1990. Sh

was placed under a state of emergency. Source: Peru 1991.
military forces (Brooke 1992a, A4). The presence of the Shining Pa

Mantaro Valley has also been contested by another armed revolut
group, the Movimiento Revolucionario Tupac Amaru (MRTA).
Nevertheless, the Shining Path has had some success in the
Valley, especially in the upland areas of livestock grazing that surr
valley. From late 1988 to at least mid-1989, the Shining Path esta
liberated zone in the Canipaco Valley, in the southeastern corner
Mantaro Valley, about thirty kilometers south of the city of Huancay
stock raising is the principal economic activity in this small valley, an
the Shining Path arrived in the region, it demanded that an agri
cooperative, the SAIS Cahuide, be dissolved, which it was (Manriq
91, 33). As it did elsewhere, the Shining Path initiated a moralizat
paign, in which it executed several cattle thieves and ordered local mer
to treat peasants fairly. Later it executed twelve village leaders for
and ordered peasant cultivators to produce only enough to be self-s
The destruction of the SAIS Cahuide was similar to Shining Path t
of other economic enterprises in upland grazing areas of the valley (M
1989, 66).
Even there Shining Path success was limited. At the northern en
valley, in the provinces of Jauja and Yauli, three cooperatives, the SAI
Amarui, Pachacfitec, and Ramon Castilla, continue to operate and
despite violent attacks on their installations and personnel by th
Path (Sanchez Enriquez 1989, 86). Their survival seems to have resu
several factors. Perhaps the most significant is that the members
cooperatives immediately recognized the grave threat that the Shin
posed to their survival, and they took action. Their economic solv
a key factor in their ability to respond effectively to Shining Path
In contrast with the SAIS Cahuide, which had been declining
founding in 1971, the other cooperatives were wealthy enough to
security arrangements for their installations and personnel when the
Path incursions occurred in 1987 (Sanchez Enriquez 1989, 94-96).
The assertion in a popular book on the Shining Path (Strong 19
that its flag now flies over hundreds of villages in Junin is clearly
geration. The department has barely one hundred places that
described as villages (Kent and Sandoval Ricci 1984). Nevertheless,
one of the most violent and actively contested regions in Peru: t
than ninety incidents of revolutionary violence there in 1991 m
second most violent department, after Lima (Instituto de Defensa L
29, 273).
THE UPPER HUALLAGA VALLEY
The second main thrust of the Shining Path was into the tropical ra
forest region on the Andean piedmont in the upper Huallaga Valley, wh
lies in the center of the department of San Martin and extends upslope
the neighboring department of Huanuco. The upper Huallaga Va

of the principal coca-producing regions in Latin America-indeed,
Somewhere between 50,000 and 100,000 hectares of coca were b
vated there during the late 1980s. Nearly all of the region's 170,000
were directly or indirectly involved with drug trafficking. The a
of coca production in the valley was estimated at U.S. $550 mill
late 1980s (Laity 1989, 1-7).
The upper Huallaga Valley offered the Shining Path new opp
and challenges. A regional economy dependent on an illegal e
represented a tremendous chance for shrewd exploitation. The
associated with crop production and with drug processing and m
were divided among three groups: coca-growing peasant farmers;
fickers, who were often Colombians; and the national police an
time-allies, the Peruvian military and the U.S. Drug Enforceme
(Gonzalez 1989, 22-24).
The Shining Path successfully inserted itself into this situation by
into a patron-client relationship with the peasant coca growers.
to defend the interests of peasants by severely reducing the effectiv
the government's coca-eradication programs, by eliminating co
ments of the police and army that exploited peasant farmers and
by raising prices paid to peasant cultivators by Colombian buyer
fickers, and by charging traffickers substantial sums in landing fee
safe passage. First and foremost, this arrangement has provided t
Path with a comparatively solid territorial base of operations and
clientele as long as the central government maintains a policy of
coca production. In addition, the ready contact with drug traff
given the Shining Path access to sophisticated weaponry-for a pri
activities in the upper Huallaga Valley are a source of hard curren
Shining Path, which is estimated at between U.S. $20 million and $10
annually (McCormick 1990, 22; Gonzales 1992, 121).
Some observers suggest that the Shining Path moved into
Huallaga Valley as early as 1980 in Aucayacu (Huanuco) and Puer
(San Martin) (Gonzales 1992, 106). The insurgents' military open
front began sometime in late 1983 or early 1984 and was so inten
1984 that the government placed the provinces under a state of
in July 1984 (Tarazona-Sevillano 1990,70-71; Gonzales 1992,107; St
110). Initially the military checked and even reduced the power of th
Path in the area through a combination of good counterinsurgency a
political tactics. The insurgents were pursued aggressively, and
escape routes into the mountains severely restricted their military o
Local military commanders clearly stated that the military action wa
the Shining Path, not coca-growing peasants or traffickers. The mili
able to undercut severely local support for the insurgents (Gon
107).
The persisting efforts by the Shining Path to maintain and ex

presence in the upper Huallaga Valley, the continuing importanc
drug trade in the regional economy, and a change to less aggressiv
enlightened military leadership in the region significantly eroded
mental control in subsequent years. In early 1987 attacks by the
Path in the upper Huallaga Valley began again in earnest (Gonzale
108).
By mid-1988 the Shining Path effectively controlled an area of the valley
almost one hundred kilometers long, from Paraiso on the north to Aucayacu
on the south (Contreras 1989, 44; Gonzales 1992, 109-111). Popular commit-
tees were established to run local affairs, and popular schools were also
instituted. Both received broad civilian acceptance, but true ideological sup-
port was limited. Most local support came from a desire to protect the coca
economy (Gonzales 1992, 111). By late 1988 the Shining Path controlled the
main road through the valley and even charged tolls at some points.
The hold of the Shining Path on the upper Huallaga Valley is not secure.
Its actual territorial control is tentative and frequently contested. Armed
confrontations and political violence occur regularly (Instituto de Defensa
Legal 1992, 283-287). In the early 1990s the MRTA was also a force to be
reckoned with. The Shining Path drove the MRTA from the upper reaches
of the valley, but both groups contested its central portions. The MRTA alone
challenged the government along the lower course of the Huallaga River
(Instituto de Defensa Legal 1992, 283). By mid-1993 the MRTA's operational
capacity was almost destroyed.
THE SOUTHERN FRONT
The Shining Path began operations in the southern Andes on the altiplano
of Puno in late 1981 (Taylor 1987, 143). Its early efforts to establish a presence
in Puno are attributable to four factors: the attractiveness of its northern
subtropical province, Carabaya, as a refuge for the guerrillas who were unde
significant pressure in Ayacucho; a desire to open a new theater of operation
which would cause military forces to be spread more thinly; the re
accessibility to the Bolivian frontier, from which supplies might be smuggle
and the long-term goal of disrupting economic activity in the hinterland
Arequipa, the second-largest city in Peru, in which the department of Pu
plays a crucial role (Taylor 1987, 143).
The early activities of the Shining Path focused on covert political o
ganizing, especially in the provinces of Azangaro and Melgar (Taylor 198
143). Soon it started military actions, and armed columns penetrated Pu
by crossing the puna from Ayacucho and Apurimac. Again many of its initia
actions focused on a moralization campaign. It enjoyed some early success
establishing support bases and even some military training bases (Institu
de Defensa Legal 1989, 14). By 1985 armed violence against local officials
politicians had begun.
In Puno the Shining Path encountered a social and political environme
considerably different from that in Ayacucho. The sophisticated and p
gressive peasantry have many large organizations with a strong rural pre
ence. Nongovernmental organizations with a record of concrete actions,
progressive Roman Catholic Church leadership with strong ties to peasa
communities and organizations, and viable, well-organized political parti
and coalitions on the left function in the region (Instituto de Defensa Leg
1989, 3). These groups occupied the political and social space that the Shini
Path sought.
In other respects, Puno seemed ripe for the Shining Path revolutionary
message. For years peasant organizations, dissatisfied with the rural agri-
cultural enterprises established as part of the military government's agrarian
reform program, had agitated for the breakup of the agricultural cooperatives
and of the large estates that were still privately owned.
The Shining Path inserted itself into the continuing effort at land reform
led by the departmental peasant federation with support from leftist political
parties and the Roman Catholic Church (Taylor 1987, 144; Instituto de De-
fensa Legal 1989, 16). As discontent grew in 1985 and 1986, land invasions
led by peasant organizations occurred with some regularity, and armed
Shining Path fighters sometimes appeared as uninvited participants pro-
fessing solidarity with the peasants. The Shining Path also attacked rural
enterprises in Puno, destroying buildings and machinery, distributing live-
stock to local residents, and often killing estate managers and personnel
(Taylor 1987, 144). Even peasant communities were subjected to Shining Path
economic equality, when the livestock of wealthier peasants were given to
their poorer brethren.
Shining Path tactics and methodology were rejected by peasants, peasant
organizations, and the political left in Puno. Thus in 1987 the Shining Path
launched a frontal attack on peasant organizations and their leaders, on party
militants and leaders of the left, and on Roman Catholic Church activists
(Instituto de Defensa Legal 1989, 17-18). Its execution squads murdered town,
district, and provincial officials (Instituto de Defensa Legal 1989, 18; Rosen-
berg 1991, 207). In 1989 its arsonists destroyed the Institute for Rural Edu-
cation, operated in Ayaviri by a Roman Catholic order (Klaiber 1992, 37).
Using violence backed by the threat of death, the Shining Path sought to
create power vacuums that it would fill. It did limit political participation
in some areas. For example, by July 1989 seven of the eighteen districts in
Azangaro had no local authorities because they either had been assassinated
or had resigned (Instituto de Defensa Legal 1989, 18). Recent reports from
Azangaro suggest that the Shining Path remains very active and may have
made advances in infiltrating and controlling some local peasant organiza-
tions (Brooke 1993, A3).
THE SHANTYTOWNS OF LIMA
The Shining Path refocused its strategy from rural to urban areas, spe-
cifically Lima, in the late 1980s (McCormick 1992). By 1991 more than half
of all incidents of political violence occurred in Lima and the neighboring
port city of Callao (Instituto de Defensa Legal 1989, 29). The f

may have resulted from the failure of the Shining Path to estab
liberated zones in the countryside and from the relative success
in combating the rural insurgency (Smith 1992a, 127). The sh
Lima offered better protection from the security forces and
ground for recruiting activities than did rural areas. Ironically, m
who had fled the violence of Shining Path cadres and count
forces in rural areas of Ayacucho found themselves facing th
in Lima (Kirk 1991, 14). Oddly, the early Shining Path strateg
the city from the countryside may actually be replicated in its c
on firm bases of support in the shantytowns that encircle Lim
The Shining Path has concentrated on establishing a pr
shantytowns along the Central Highway between Lima and th
and mining centers of the Mantaro Valley. The area has addit
value because a significant proportion of the industrial capac
located there and because key water and electrical transmiss
supply Lima parallel the highway from the highlands (Smith
Huaycan, one such shantytown, represents one of the ear
documented efforts by the Shining Path to establish a dom
in the area. Established in 1984, the settlement grew rapidly; by
year it had a population of some 22,000. Realizing the strategi
of the settlement's location and impoverished inhabitants, the
moved as many as one hundred of its partisans into the comm
1992a, 137). The Shining Path exploited the situation but
widespread or even significant support among the local resi
observers suggest that it failed because the population was si
and because the Shining Path did not offer evidence that it co
the benefit of the community (DESCO 1991, 30-31). Between
it shifted most of its activities out of Huaycan. Nevertheless,
still felt, and its efforts to intimidate local leaders and communi
continue (Nash 1992, A6).
After its retreat from Huaycan, the Shining Path used a
gain control of areas adjacent to the Central Highway. Instead
to infiltrate and then dominate an existent shantytown, the
organized a new settlement. In July 1990 some 300 individu
direction of the Shining Path invaded a fifteen-hectare parcel ad
Central Highway (DESCO 1991, 31). The parcel was enclosed w
foot-high adobe wall; guard towers were built at each corner
enclosure; and only two entrances were constructed. New settlers
absorbed, and the population reached 1,500 within a few mon
ing Path strictly controlled the social life of the settlement.
were guarded at all times; no strangers were permitted inside; an
were registered and accompanied during their stay. Residen
in political indoctrination sessions, communal work parties, co
den projects, military exercises, and collective meals (DESCO
Within a year Shining Path control of the small settlement was t

for the government to ignore. When the lawsuit against the lan
favored the legal owners, the Shining Path pressured local gove
officials to oppose the decision. It also blocked the Central Highw
on two occasions resulted in violent confrontations with the pol
military, to force resolution of the issue in its favor. The prope
requested that the eviction order be rescinded and that a peaceful
be reached with the residents. It seemed like a Shining Path vict
Less than a month later, military forces surrounded the comp
armed confrontation seemed inevitable. However, the military be
action campaign of peacefully distributing food and medicine a
with the settlement's residents. The Shining Path activists were
guard; no violent confrontation ensued; and the influence of th
Path over the settlement waned but did not disappear. Perhaps
nificantly, the experience provided the Shining Path with a wor
of how to dominate other shantytowns in the future (DESCO 19
By mid-1992 the Shining Path had established a strong prese
least seven areas of Lima-Callao, primarily in shantytowns (Los
1992, 34-35). Some of these strongholds are strategically located alon
major transportation routes and facilities, most importantly the
ican Highway, the Central Highway, and the international airp
areas are on small, heavily urbanized hills. Entry into these areas is
to a few access points that the Shining Path can control, so the
refuges and observation posts over parts of the metropolitan ar
CONCLUSIONS
The territorial evolution of the Shining Path generally conforms to t

three-stage pattern of other modern insurgency movements. The Shini
Path shifted from a mobile presence to areas in which it established admi
istrative structures, but effective governmental response prevented desi
nation of a permanent territorial core. The Shining Path opened new theaters
of operations, where the first two stages were repeated. The most success
has been in the upper Huallaga Valley, the main coca-growing region
Peru. Here the Shining Path both controls and administers the territor
Nevertheless, the Shining Path is far short of realizing the third stage of
successful revolutionary movement. Control of the valley area may offer the
Shining Path its best prospects for an insurgent state, but that scenario
not imminent.
REFERENCES
Americas Watch. 1990. In desperate straits: human rights in Peru after a decade of dem
insurgency. New York: Americas Watch.
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Geographical Dimensions of The Shining Path Insurgency in Peru

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Geographical Dimensions of The Shining Path Insurgency in Peru

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American Geographical Society

Geographical Dimensions of the Shining Path Insurgency in Peru

ABSTRACT. The Shining Path insurgency began in Peru in 1980. T

THE effective control of geographically based regions leading to the es-

* DR. KENT is an associate professor of geography and planning at the University of

Copyright ? 1993 by the American Geographical Society of New York

Beginning in the mid-1960s the Shining Path established a vast net

* Theater of operation for

0 100 200 300 400 500

FIG. 1-Areas of Shining Path activity in Peru.

the towns of Lucanamarca, Carapo, Sacsamarca, and Huanca Sancos. In l

province of Andahuaylas, local authorities resigned their offices. Th

Although the Shining Path concentrated its territorial energy on Aya-

department ranked second only to Ayacucho and actually sur

0 100 200 300 400 500

FIG. 2-Areas of Peru under a state of emergency 1981-1990. Sh

military forces (Brooke 1992a, A4). The presence of the Shining Pa

THE UPPER HUALLAGA VALLEY

the neighboring department of Huanuco. The upper Huallaga Va

The persisting efforts by the Shining Path to maintain and ex

THE SHANTYTOWNS OF LIMA

port city of Callao (Instituto de Defensa Legal 1989, 29). The f

Within a year Shining Path control of the small settlement was t

The territorial evolution of the Shining Path generally conforms to t

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